Council hears Snyder Hill frustrations

 

Last updated 7/18/2018 at 9:38am



Snyder Hill residents raised a rousing ruckus at the July 10 Electric City council meeting on the agreement made with the city concerning their 2010 annexation to the city.

During a public comment time slot on the council meeting agenda, complaints from citizens of Snyder Hill ranged from the city not treating the roads of the area to the failure of the city to plow snow to certain points of the roads, something understood by residents there to be conditions of the annexation.

A solution for the snow plow issue is in the works as the city began the process of accepting quitclaim deeds, which would grant the city the access necessary to plow snow through the areas in question.

The “chip sealing” road treatment would occur “when funds are available,” according to the original annexation agreement.

Snyder and the residents on the hill feel that the terms discussed in the minutes, chip sealing the road within two years, should still be honored.

“Council minutes are conversation,” Mayor John Nordine said. “We’re talking, it’s conversation; it gets written down, but it’s not an agreement.”

“If you don’t have the money for a pothole the size of a plate, what happens when it’s the size of a car?” Snyder Hill resident Roger Butler asked the council. “You need to tend to potholes regularly or they become a bigger expense and a bigger problem.”

“That’s the only reason these people signed up, because the agreement was the road would get chip sealed,” said Wayne Snyder, who had developed the area.

Snyder conferred with a couple of other residents of Snyder Hill during the meeting, who agreed that they had expected these terms to be fulfilled when they accepted the annexation agreement.

“The main reason any of us decided to annex was because our roads would be chipsealed within two years and maintained,” said Lila Snyder. “We don’t expect you to plow up to our back door. You led Wayne and the people on the hill to believe that things were going to be done differently; now you need to just look at that.”

The city also wants Snyder to build curbs and sidewalks on portions of the road, something that original discussions of the deal included.

“We were going to waive the sidewalks and curbs and all that because 80 percent of it was already developed,” said Gerry Sands, former council member and former mayor of Electric City, who was present during those original discussions.

The official annexation paperwork seems to include this term within its language.

“These existing streets do not conform to city standards and the maintenance of these streets will be to the standard to which they were built and not city standards,” the 2010 annexation agreement states.

The snow plowing is the one issue that seems to be resolved at this point.

 

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